Des Kelly: Brendan Rodgers has a mountain to climb at Liverpool, but he can do it

Pain game: Brendan Rodgers suffers as he sees his Liverpool side slip to defeat at Manchester United, their seventh of the season

Winners never quit. Quitters never win. I heard this bloody-minded mantra being growled through gritted teeth over and over again for nearly 15 hours.

Brendan Rodgers was ill. We were in Africa, nearly 20,000 feet up Kilimanjaro, trudging towards the top of the largest single-standing mountain on Planet Earth.

He had contracted some kind of unpleasant stomach bug, hadn’t slept properly for days, and was notably weak. Edible food and running water were a fond memory and a handful of our party had already been sent back through injury or sickness.

Rodgers should have been among them, but he trudged on, determinedly putting one foot in front of the other on the long, night trek to the summit. He made it.

That was three and a half years ago. I said in an article at the time: “Rodgers is an immensely impressive man. He exudes integrity and thoughtful charm and somehow appears to have time for everyone. He is about to lead Swansea into the Premier League, but it is merely the next step to something greater. I guarantee it. The man can move mountains.”

It was one of my better predictions. Twelve months later, Rodgers moved to Liverpool and, in his second season, finished runner-up in the Premier League. His fellow bosses voted him Manager of the Year.

Now, things are somewhat stickier. Liverpool are misfiring. The defeat at Old Trafford yesterday said everything about the club’s season so far. Chances were squandered, costly mistakes were made at the back and talented players are visibly shrinking as their confidence drains away.

The results don’t lie. If you take into account the change to three points for a win, this is Liverpool’s lowest points total after 16 league games for nearly 50 years.

Roy Hodgson had one more point at this stage in 2010-11 — and he was soon being bundled towards the exit.

The recruitment policy at Liverpool, as I understand it, is to sign players that can be lifted to world-class level. That sounds wise in principle — but it’s hardly a recipe for instant success. You can’t keep raiding Southampton and hope to topple Real Madrid in the same season.

Even so, Rodgers is in the coconut shy. I’ve heard wild claims that John W Henry has thought about sacking Rodgers twice. Says who? Key people tell me the owners are backing the manager.

At the start of the season, Sam Allardyce and Alan Pardew weren’t supposed to see in Christmas with their current clubs. A bit of faith and support from within soon changed that.

We hear now that Rodgers is either “too nice for his own good”, or he’s “too arrogant”. Make your minds up, people.

He’s actually a good coach, an erudite man, he treats players with respect, he tries to improve and help them, and he has all the qualities required to build a successful side over time. Rodgers is steely enough for the challenge.

Liverpool need to display equal resolve right now and shun any foolish temptation to bail out on their man. After all, winners never quit and quitters never win.

The Beeb’s X-rated awards show

Winning act: Lewis Hamilton addresses the audience during last night’s ceremony, which proved sport is showbiz

Congratulations to Ben Haenow on winning the Sports Personality of the Year award. The public certainly picked a worthy winner.

That’s right, isn’t it? I admit I was flicking about with the remote quite a lot… At times, the events were difficult to separate. As the year’s sporting obituaries were being introduced, for some reason an X Factor-style audience in the background were waving, gurning and shouting ‘look at me!’ at the camera.

There was a disappointed runner-up attempting to smile through the slap in the face they had just received while the obligatory ticker tape celebration rained down.

More worryingly, both programmes seemed to centre on a bloke with a dodgy voice. If you needed proof that sport is showbiz, you only had to watch the television on Sunday night.

Khan’s transformation proves he’s ready for Mayweather

The theory that Amir Khan is too headstrong, too cavalier and too fragile to ever think he could trade blows with the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jnr and Manny Pacquiao and succeed is on the canvas.

Khan’s new no-nonsense trainer Virgil Hunter has transformed Britain’s former Olympic silver medallist from an exciting but sometimes horribly naive fighter into a clever craftsman who can unload punches in devastatingly quick salvos.

Khan battered three-time world champion Devon Alexander from start to finish at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. There was a moment when the Bolton-born boxer threatened to slip into his bad habits but a finger jab in the chest from Hunter and some stern words instantly corrected that. Khan was magnificent.

Mayweather has dodged facing him in the past. Maybe there wasn’t enough money in it, maybe he didn’t fancy the test but now the contest would be pure box office gold.

Bring it on.

Time to ban athletics?

Last week, a German television documentary exposed the extraordinary scale of doping by Russian athletes. Claims were made that “99 per cent” were on drugs. Now, other countries are being dragged into the mire. Directors of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) have resigned over claims they took bribes and covered up suspicious test results. My proposal last week was to ban entire nations from competition. But it’s fast approaching the point when we should think about shutting down the whole sordid cesspool.